Valparaiso’s men’s tennis team opened the 2010 fall season on Friday playing among some of the top teams in the Great Lakes and Midwest regions at the Purdue Fall Invitational held in West Lafayette, Ind.

“I was fairly happy with how we played overall today,” head coach Jim Daugherty said.  “There are no easy matches to be had anywhere in this tournament which shows the strength of the field.”

Kyle Stump (Plymouth, Ind./Plymouth H.S.) won the lone singles match for the Crusaders, defeating 6-1, 6-4 in the round of 32 in the C flight.  The senior will face Jami Clark of Vincennes on Saturday in the main draw round of 16.

The Crusaders also had four other matches which went to third set tie-breakers to decide the match.  In the A flight, Chris Baum (Charlotte, N.C./Providence H.S.) fell to Szymon Tatarczyk 6-7 (10), 6-4, 15-13.  Sean Tan of Notre Dame edged Kevin DeHerrera (Littleton, Colo./Chatfield H.S.) 7-5, 2-6, 14-12 in the B flight while Billy Heuer of Purdue also won in a tie-break against Eric Honert (Arvada, Colo./Ralston Valley H.S.) 6-4, 6-7 (4), 12-10 in the same flight.  In the C flight, Tommy Calderone of Western Michigan defeated Michael Woodson (Raleigh, N.C./Ravenscroft H.S.) 5-7, 6-3, 10-3.

“We lost four match tie-breaks against some good schools,” Daugherty said.  “We had match points in a couple of the contests which shows just how close we are to breaking through.”

In other first round matches, Jose Gaspar (Sao Paulo, Brazil/CEAD H.S.) fell to Sven Kasper of DePaul 6-4, 6-1 in the A flight while Jonas Dierckx of Iowa topped Adam Whitmer (Shipshewana, Ind./Westview H.S.) 6-0, 6-3 in the B flight.  In the C flight, Daven Brodess of Notre Dame was a 6-0, 6-1 victor over Carlton Lyons (South Bend, Ind./Clay H.S.) and Falk Debeenhouwer of Southern Illinois topped Siddarth Mehta (South Bend, Ind./Clay H.S.) 6-4, 6-4.

The Crusaders failed to win any main draw doubles contests on Friday, but did win some consolation matches.  The B flight saw Mehta and Woodson down Alex Solove and Eric Klawitter of Case Western 8-5 after dropping an 8-1 match against Jeroen Gortworst and Chase Tomlins of Iowa.  Whitmer and DeHerrera teamed to down Jan-Frans Englebrecht of Purdue and the Crusaders’ Lyons 8-5 after falling 8-4 to DePaul’s George Chanturia and Matija Palinic.  Englebrecht and Lyons fell in their first match 9-8 (5) in a tie-break against Sean Carr and Ryan Haines of Case Western.

Stump and Baum were defeated by Craig Cox and Fabian Gogolin of Green Bay 8-6 after falling to Zeyad Montasser and Brad Noel of Western Michigan 8-5 in the A flight.  In the same flight, Gaspar and Honert fell 8-4 to Adam Fabik and Brandon Florez of Southern Illinois before losing 8-6 against Dierckx and Joey White of Iowa.

Valparaiso will return to the courts for day two of the tournament on Saturday morning beginning at 7 a.m.